Hospital Tends the Anguish of Chechnya

The most gravely wounded victims of the bombing in Chechnya never make it to Atagi.

But the screams of the injured men and women who survived the 18-mile trip south from the bomb-splintered capital of Grozny to be carried into this makeshift hospital Friday made seasoned medics shudder.

“Oh my God, where will this end?” cried nurse Aina Saina as yet another young man with part of his legs blown off was carried by on a stretcher.

The remorseless bombing and shelling of Grozny reached a frenzied pitch Friday, indicating a fierce new Russian drive to seize the rebel capital that has fended them off with small arms and sheer grit for more than a month.

By 1 p.m., 11 people with burns and shrapnel wounds had been treated at the primitive hospital now housed in the Atagi teachers’ training college, hospital officials said. One patient had died, and two others were being prepared for surgery in a classroom where an emergency operating room had been set up.

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It was no worse than usual, however. On Thursday, the casualty count was two dead and 28 wounded, they said.

All of the surgeons working here are themselves refugees from Grozny, where every hospital has been bombed. Though doctors there can offer minor first aid, anyone with serious injuries must be driven 18 miles over a bumpy road to Atagi for treatment.

There are no facilities to keep patients here for more than three days. Either relatives come and fetch them and they convalesce at home, or they must be transferred to a hospital in the neighboring republic of Dagestan.

Saina is a volunteer whose husband was killed when their Grozny apartment was shelled. She said she escaped with her three children and only the clothes they had on.

“I feel so sorry for all of the wounded here,” she said. “If I do not help them, who will?”

Heaps of bloody clothing cut from the wounded victims lay in the corridor. From the operating room, one man croaked out an Islamic prayer. Another cried out in agonized delirium as his surgical anesthesia wore off.

“The majority of those coming in over the last two days have shrapnel wounds,” chief surgeon Lom-Ali Kazbekov said. Some have been hit by needlelike flechettes or flesh-piercing lead balls from antipersonnel bombs, he said.

The Red Cross delivered medicine Dec. 27, but supplies are running out. Kazbekov said he needs bandages, anesthetics, transfusion solutions, syringes and other essentials.

Kazbekov said most of his patients were injured in Grozny, but some come from remote mountain villages that have been pummeled by Russian bombers apparently aiming to wipe out rebel bases.

On Thursday, an entire family was felled by a bombing at the Argun collective farm, 10 miles east of Grozny.

“The father died on arrival,” Kazbekov said. “The mother had burns on her face, arms and legs, as well as some shrapnel wounds. The six kids had similar injuries. And they are still searching for the two other children.

“Since Dec. 29 we’ve received about 400 people here, and I’m not counting the ambulatory patients,” the surgeon said. “Eighty percent were peaceful civilians.”

On Friday, however, the muddy field in front of the hospital was filled with Chechen fighters who had brought their wounded buddies.

Despite reports that the rebels are losing ground in the capital--and the dozens of cars filled with fighters spotted heading away from Grozny on the road leading south toward the Caucasus Mountains--Chechens insisted that Grozny is still nowhere close to falling.

“We’re taking the civilians out, but there is no point in us retreating because they are already bombing the mountains as well,” said Sharip Yushayev, a factory worker before the war.

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He and five others had brought in a shellshocked Chechen fighter, his head drenched in blood, wounded by a bomb that dropped in Khrushchev Square in southern Grozny. Five or six others died on the spot, Yushayev said. The men had already buried their commander in their native village.

But they were headed back to Grozny, determined to exact revenge on the advancing Russian soldiers.

A television cameraman, Yuri Tunev, 30, was wounded in the same neighborhood when an artillery shell exploded nearby Friday. Tunev suffered shrapnel wounds to the face and leg, colleagues said. Three journalists have been killed covering the conflict.

One family fleeing Grozny after spending nearly a month in the cold basement of their apartment said it is time for Chechnya to lay down arms and make peace with Russia.

“It is impossible to stop the Russian military machine,” said Said Salekhov, 32, who had managed to collect all of his relatives but left his possessions behind. “This is not even a war in any real sense of the word. It’s just a cruel extermination of our people.”

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Despite the terrible punishment that Chechnya has taken, his remains a minority view.

The next car headed down the road from Grozny was a Mercedes-Benz with a man toting an AK-47 in the passenger seat and four family members in back. The driver, Lecho Umkhayev, said he would drop off his relatives and return to fight.

To give up now, he said, would be to accept Russian annihilation.

“We know very well what atrocities the Russians are committing on the occupied territory, where there is no resistance and the Chechens have given up their arms,” Umkhayev said. “Everybody knows what will happen. We will never allow them to take us to the slaughter like lambs.”